"THE SUM of All Fears" is to previous Tom Clancy movies what a "dirty bomb" is to a state-of-the-art, satellite-guided thermonuclear warhead. It may get the job done but it lacks explosive power, accuracy and range.
Tom Clancy, whose novel was the inspiration (that's the Hollywood term for "excuse") for this movie, and who's an executive producer, must have drawn more money than psychic satisfaction from the project. He surely has his private opinion of this movie's departures from the book.
Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck star in "The Sum of All Fears."
(Paramount Pictures)
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Producer Mace Neufeld, who has made all the Clancy-based films ("The Hunt for Red October," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger"), has clearly revamped (and prequeled) this movie to attract Ben Affleck's youthful fan base.
The book's intrepid Jack Ryan, who's a CIA deputy director with a wife and kids (a few years after the events of "Patriot Games"), has been youthed down. As played by Affleck, Ryan's a wet-behind-the-ears CIA junior analyst, whose expertise on the subject of the Russian premier (Ciaran Hinds) is the only hope for humankind. And he's just met this smashing surgical resident, Cathy Muller (Bridget Moynahan), who's going to be his wife in the Clancy-ordained future.
The Middle Eastern terrorists of the novel, who infiltrate the United States intending to explode a dirty bomb at a Super Bowl in Denver, have now become neo-Nazis who want to do the same thing in Baltimore.
Poor, poor neo-Nazis (not to mention renegade white South Africans and disgruntled Russian communists), they're always left holding the bag. What they need is a powerful anti-defamation lobby with a permanent reservation at Spago in Hollywood.
In theory, there's nothing wrong with an inspired departure from the text. After all, Clancy did not get his plot from a mountain-top huddle with Moses. But screenwriters Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne can only do a potboiler job. "Sum of All Fears," directed by Phil Alden Robinson, unfolds like second-rate James Bond. There are stops in Chechnya, the Golan Heights, Austria and of course the international, jet-setting locale of Baltimore. In keeping with Bond rules, shady businessman Richard Dressler (Alan Bates) plays the hissy villain, and Liev Schreiber is the powerful, deadly CIA operative abroad, who helps Ryan. And the plot's as stretched as the itinerary.
When terrorists get their hands on a nuclear dirty bomb (picked up in the Golan Heights), their strategy is to foment tension between the United States and the Russians, while they tiptoe to Baltimore with that bad boy. (If you think I'm giving the plot away, you should see Paramount Pictures' own previews for the movie. They give you everything but the Cliffs Notes.)
Meet CIA Russian specialist Ryan, who knows a great deal about Soviet leader Nemerov (Hinds). Ryan believes, correctly, that Nemerov's belligerent statements against the United States have been made under duress from hard-liners. It's up to Ryan to persuade his mentor, CIA Director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman), and the American president (James Cromwell) to take their fingers off the doomsday button and check out danger that's even closer to home.
Affleck's presence may attract young viewers and introduce them to the Ryan series. And the movie certainly has its moments – although how could it not with a potential end-of-the-world scenario? But for all its powerfully charged elements, "Sum" is surprisingly uninvolving, the least effective of Neufeld's Clancy-based movies. Surely he was not looking for this kind of film: one that bombs literally and figuratively.
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (PG-13, 119 minutes) – Contains alarming depictions of post-nuclear attack. Area theaters.
